Damage over Time
by Rabbitprint
Summary: Persona 5, spoilers, MMO AU where there's no Metaverse. The world doesn't have to be ending in order to want to save someone's heart.


_Note: Based on Persona 5 material only, does not include Dancing in Starlight or Royal._

* * *

Phantom Thieves is a small guild, but you think it does all right.

None of you are hardcore raiders, looking to clear content just for bragging rights. World-first achievements and daily ranking sites invite a cannibalistic mentality: everyone competes to show off gear and titles, poaching raiders from other guilds who take the best drops with them. Players hit the beta servers hot, grinding dungeons as early as they can in order to down bosses on the very first night of release. Content isn't there to be enjoyed - it exists to be brushed aside and beaten down, footnotes on the path to digital glory. Mechanics to memorize, patterns to practice. Everything else is cosmetic. Only progression counts.

There are other ways to play, of course. Some guilds just goof off in Palaces on weekends, running around dungeons haphazardly with no interest in seeing anything completed. They're so casual that you understand why the label has become a slur: when people think it's hilarious to waste time dying over and over again on the same basic trash pulls, or attack random enemies headlong for their own personal entertainment. It's a stereotype of barely-geared players who don't care that their lack of performance means someone else has to work twice as hard, and laugh it off whenever it's mentioned - but it's a stereotype for a reason. Those guilds tend to be friends-and-family at best, convenient hangouts for people who already know each other and simply want fancier chatrooms. You understand why there's a line, with both sides - elite and casual - avidly loathing the other.

_Phantom Thieves_, on the other hand, sits squarely in the middle, focused on progress while staying small and private. It started entirely by accident, thanks to you and a school classmate being caught in the same rainstorm before class. You hadn't expected to find other P5 players nearby; more accurately, you hadn't expected to even get into the game at _all_. MMOs were popular even back in your hometown - how else could you see more than the same bland streets every day, like recycled terrain graphics pasted into real life - but you hadn't had a reason to really invest.

You're lucky Ryuji and Ann reached out, honestly. People's whispers were already getting to you - the acidic grumbles of your temporary guardian, the tittering gossip of your classmates. Like trickles of water slapping against stone, they had been steadily wearing you down, eroding away your identity and pride. All of your classmates back home already cut you off completely. You'd thought you'd had friends, but - well.

You'd thought you'd had friends.

* * *

_Keep your head down_, your parents had advised. _It's just for a year. We love you. We'll do everything we can on our side. We know you can make it through this. _

_Screw that_, you'd decided after spending the first week enduring the distrusting stares of your new Shujin classmates, and had started trying to come up with all kinds of plans that probably would have done exactly the _opposite_ of staying under the radar.

Classes had been a string of identical hostilities, with rumors in every corner and teachers grousing about their bad luck at getting you. All your friendly overtures had been ignored. No one wanted to be seen near your desk, as if your delinquency was an airborne infection, making casualties out of those unfortunate enough to breathe in your presence.

As you had gone into the weekend with no better options than to crawl into your attic and wait for Monday to repeat the whole cycle again, you'd found yourself thinking of Ryuji's voice, chatting you up in the alleyways until you were both late for school: _Hey dude, you play P5?_

_I've only seen it advertised. Is it that good?_

_Hell yeah! Look, start up a trial tonight, I'll get you hooked up with Invite-a-Friend. Gets me cool shit too, y'know?_

You'd dismissed his offer at first, thinking that being an attic shut-in would only turn you into a stereotype, a descent into an inevitable _hikikomori_ lifestyle. But as the second week of classes went by, and none of your classmates would look you in the eye, and the whispers mounted and mounted without showing any signs of stopping - and you found your fingers itching to write the wrong thing on the blackboard, or for your mouth to smile the wrong way - you'd realized that all your resistance would only bring about a slow death. The system wasn't just waiting for you to snap - it was _hoping _you would, all so it could smirk and say, _We knew he was rotten all along._

* * *

The Persona 5 client had been a fast download, but patching meant waiting through hours of installation, half-heartedly scribbling your homework answers while watching the progress bar. At first, the game had refused to let you in. The tiny checkbox agreeing to the EULA terms was almost invisible all the way at the bottom, and the frowning face of the long-nosed NPC stared back at you balefully as you kept trying to hit _Summon Persona_, frustrated at the error messages that claimed you had to sign the contract first.

Once you had finally found - and clicked on - the agreement, Igor's face had dissolved away into the blue drapery of the Velvet Room's character creator.

You'd picked a Fool simply because it was the first class on the list, customizing stats and resists at random. _Arsene_, you'd decided for a name, remembering some of the translated English classics you were forced to read in school last year. Arsene Lupin. A few points in Curse skills, a basic attack, and then you'd been dropped into the starting zone, tutorial pop-ups helpfully cluttering the screen while other newbies ran around in circles and spammed emotes.

Despite the mess, you had logged on the next night.

And then the next.

As a distraction, P5 had worked. It offered something fresh to look forward to each day after class, going home and exploring a world where your reputation was as blank as the information in your User Profile. No one in P5 gossiped about you; the other players didn't care who you were, so long as you could pull off a half-adequate DPS rotation. Ryuji had latched onto you immediately, grouping with you every time he saw you online, and dragging you to high-level zones where Arsene promptly caught the attention of every monster on the map.

After a month, you'd realized that you'd been logging on automatically by default: letting Arsene idle in town as you plodded through homework or helped downstairs in Leblanc, checking back every few hours to see if anyone had said hello in the meantime. The routine was easy, effortlessly comfortable. Slowly, you had begun to start chatting with people again even in passing, thanking the strangers who had been your party members or asking crafters for trades. Ann surprised you by logging in just as frequently, but the answer - in retrospect - was obvious: P5 was how she kept in touch with Shiho in the evenings, when Shiho needed a place to escape to as well.

After a while, it just made sense for the four of you to form a guild. It staved off random invites from recruiters, and provided shared bank space and easier grouping. Voice chat helped a lot to keep you company; some nights, all you did was log on and let Arsene's chat log fill up, talking with your friends over headset while you afk'd on and off.

It's not bad, the guild. It's at least a place to be - particularly since you don't have anywhere else.

* * *

The Thieves aren't big enough to finish the Castle of Lust reliably without having to go out of guild. Basic P5 raid teams require eight people, with a couple spare on the bench for rotation. Your guild roster is only three bodies strong - Shiho can't raid, doesn't have the time or interest - and everyone's classes aren't the best composition for a well-balanced team anyway. A Fool, Chariot and Lovers makes for a weak core, without sufficient damage _or_ healing, let alone the ability to tank.

You do the best you can by rolling alts, switching out Arsene for Pixie and Incubus - but even so, you're still only filling one slot by yourself. The guild has to recruit pick-up members every week, and that means that no one's used to working with each other. Players argue, quit mid-raid, assume different strategies are in play even though you spell it out explicitly in chat before the pull. A lot of fights end up with half your raiders on the floor. One of your pugs insists on streaming every fight, even though it slows down their connection to a crawl; they quit in a huff two weeks later, insisting that it's _your_ raid that's underperforming.

Inertia gets you nominated as guild leader - you're the one who plays the most often, and has the widest experience with different classes - and you could probably raid lead too, except that one of your better pick-ups ends up coming back the next night, and then the next, until you're sending him a guild invite by default. Mona's a valuable contributor in more ways than one: he has the patience to do the number crunching and video watching to help provide better strategies. He mains a Magician named Zorro with a handful of Detect skills, and has been playing P5 a _lot_ longer than the rest of you - since beta, from what he claims. Most importantly, Mona doesn't seem to have the same school schedule as the rest of you, so he has all the time he needs for log parsing.

Mishima - a classmate who comes to you by way of Ann and Shiho - handles the guild site. He's always online, hanging around eagerly in chat, but there's no way he can even set foot into a Palace. His computer is a glorified word processor with a framerate in the single digits. Everything looks like a slideshow, and he's either autorunning Sandalphon into a wall, or dead from AOE. Even though he says he's okay with being friends-and-family rank, he always seems hopeful on raid nights, and it's always painful to try and turn him down.

Surprisingly, Sojiro doesn't seem to mind your gaming habits. Your best guess is that he expected you to start up regular fistfights right on Leblanc's front porch, instead of going straight to the attic most afternoons and quietly sequestering yourself at your desk. You're down obediently for dinner and to stretch your legs, and to help close up the café without any protest. The reclusiveness seems to disorient the man, changing his scowl gradually into an uneasy kind of frown, one you're not sure how to interpret. But when he tentatively offers to help you learn how to make a good cup of coffee, you accept instantly: the caffeine is like an elixir from the gods, and keeps you going during hours of late-night farming and raids.

Life is quiet in Leblanc. Your schedule is sedate, routine; all the trouble you get into is online, against monsters where the only blood is animated. The worst conflicts you have involve juggling homework around new content releases. When you fail to distinguish yourself as a further troublemaker at school, the whispers eventually switch over to Kamoshida, though they don't leave you entirely; even so, they're easier to ignore these days, knowing that you have someplace to retreat to safely without them.

You log on whenever you need it. You log on every day. After a few months, Sojiro even starts asking you to come down and be more social, a strange wistfulness in his voice when he announces, _you don't _**_have _**_to stay cooped up in your room, you know_.

It's a different enough reaction from his initial hostility that you agree.

He's fussing with the coffee siphons when you bring down your laptop, but when he glances up and sees you finally coming down the stairs, he breaks into a smile of such profound relief that you find yourself smiling back, feeling your own wariness start to melt. He complains about pouring two cups, but the grumble lacks any honest resentment this time, and he offers sugar and cream with a resigned shrug.

You accept the coffee with a thankful nod, and don't mind when he comes around to squint at your screen, asking questions about the mobs and which buttons do what.

* * *

**Patch 5.21 Notes**

* Paintings have been added to housing items! Crafting drops can be found in the Museum of Vanity.  
* Players will no longer be bugged upon moving from painting to painting, and will be able to exit from frames again.  
* New inventory has been added to Iwai's shop.  
* New dialogue options available from Iwai for players with Reputation above Rank 3.  
* Treasure demons have been spotted in the Museum of Vanity! Don't miss this opportunity for some extra gold.

* * *

Ryuji, Mona, and Ann all have their pride - and so do you, keeping the Thieves barely afloat past casual status. The Museum of Vanity might be on farm by the second week, but Merciless difficulty is still way beyond you all. The raid tried it once, just to see. No one survived the first pull.

You're still working on a new alt - Kelpie, a Strength class - as summer eases in. The Execution system is addictive; you can't help rolling an alt and leveling them up a bit to see how they develop, even if you don't want to max them out fully. In any other MMO, those characters would gather dust, half-finished and wasted. In P5, you can at least recycle them, passing up skills, experience, and even gear to other alts. You're already hitting the limit of what you want to do with Kelpie, but once they level up a bit more, you can fuse them into Archangel. After that, there's always Bicorn.

You've got goals. You have _spreadsheets_.

No one else in the Phantom Thieves is as serious about it as you, which is probably for the best - if you were, you'd probably all descend into gaming full-time, and fail out of school. As it is, it feels like you're always short on time, counting off your schedule around each weekly reset instead of weekends and exam reviews.

"Why do these seasonal events have to be so _short_," Ryuji complains over voice chat one night. "Can't they just keep them around all year?"

"Then they wouldn't drop limited edition items, would they?" Ann chimes in. "Anyway, they'll be back next year. Just farm whatever you can now."

On your screen, Mona carefully pulls the next batch of mobs into range, as systematic and patient as clockwork. "I still don't get why we can't use Phanthieves as our guild tag," he complains. "PT sounds so _generic_."

"_Phanty_thieves," Ryuji retorts, and then snickers.

Mona's huff of exasperation is almost drowned out by the sound effects of Cptkidd's lightning AOE. "Well, we need to start recruiting _now_, before Patch 5.3 hits. The next Palace is supposed to be _much_ harder. The dev notes keep saying that they'll be adding in more puzzles, and that's going to be impossible to coordinate with pugs."

"Do you have any friends around who might want to join?" you ask, half-distracted by Ryuji's rapidly-descending health bar.

"You're my friends," Mona replies automatically, which doesn't come out as either hopeful or self-pitying: simply matter-of-fact. No one's ever met Mona in person. The current theory is that he's a celebrity. _No one knows you're a cat on the internet_, he'd said smugly once when asked, and Ryuji had messed up the meme by trying to claim he was a tree next.

_You're my friends_. It sounds like it could be fodder for a joke about shut-ins - but you don't say it. No one does.

Your probation really isn't that bad anymore, not when you've got this. When you were first adjusting to Tokyo, you imagined having to spend the year completely alone, sliding through school while rejected by everyone and everything. But if _this_ is how you're going to end up enduring the months - with your friends laughing through your laptop speakers, the screenshot humor threads, the self-imposed challenges for clearing dungeons with only half your gear on - suddenly the attic isn't a prison anymore. It's a home.

It's the little things, you realize one evening, after a hysterical run through one wing of the Palace where everyone's laughing loud enough that you have to turn down your speakers and muffle your own voice, hoping Sojiro doesn't come stomping up the stairs to complain about disruptions to the customers. People can measure the impact of a waterfall simply by glancing at it, but they ignore the trickle which relentlessly erodes through stone until it carves out entire canyons. All you see of the latter is the damage it leaves behind, like a curse with no cure or finite duration, killing even the toughest character over time.

The little things make all the difference sometimes - both good and bad.

* * *

The next Palace is packed full with even more obstacles than the developers warned about, but surviving them mostly involves patience and muscle memory. Fox - your latest recruit, and an Emperor main - takes just as much time to get used to. He doesn't play that often, and you're lucky he can play at _all_ around his classwork. He's an art student, completely focused on the craft, and only has his computer because his teacher demanded that he branch out into digital painting. Half the time, he alt-tabs out to keep working on a piece, even though it slows down his graphics processor to a crawl, and then forgets to alt-tab back. P5 is more than just a game for him: it's also creative inspiration.

But Fox's sense of combat is impeccable, as if skill rotations are instincts which he can grasp on the same innate level as his art. He doesn't crunch his performance numbers or practice on test dummies; whenever you log on, he's spending most of his time rearranging his wardrobe illusions. His first thread on the guild site was entirely dedicated to fashion screenshots. He's got good taste - you've borrowed a few of his ideas already.

Fashion is Fox's handicap, however. All his money goes straight to cosmetics instead of into upgrades. As a raider, he's good enough at his role that you don't actually mind whenever you have to lend him repair cash; he's perpetually broke and doesn't play the auction house. Even so, he's one of the most dedicated players you have, largely because the endurance that keeps him sitting in front of a canvas for hours is the same kind that lets him grind through encounters for the hundredth time waiting for the right gear to drop.

You start automatically adding on his raid supplies into your own weekly list, and if he notices that you slip in extra stacks of food buffs, he doesn't say anything.

One evening, when you swing by to trade over medicines in person, Fox is on the guild house lawn trying on his latest outfits. The chirping sound effects of illusion spells chime like bells. Goemon rotates through a whole series of coats that would overflow a wardrobe; you're not sure how Fox even _has _that much inventory space to spare.

You watch, bemused, as he fusses over dyes for his pants, running his character in and out of patches of sunlight to see how the colors shift. "You _do_ know those won't make a difference in combat, right?"

"Impossible," Fox responds coolly. "What's the point of going into battle if you're not properly dressed for it? Ah - do you think that these two reds match well enough?"

Dutifully, you zoom your camera in. On your screen, the shades are completely identical - but so was the last set Fox asked you to judge. "You could just go naked."

Fox swaps out another pair of skin-tight leggings. "Regretfully, we can't all be Skull. How do you feel about blue?"

The next member of the Phantom Thieves after that has a different playstyle entirely. Fox spends his money on appearance, but Queen spends hers on gear, regardless of what it looks like. She dedicates herself to being fully maxed out on all her enhancements with a focus that's terrifying, calculating best-in-slot and recalculating secondary pieces based around specific fights. She's an inverse to Fox, but no less focused: she spends hours punching the test dummies, and re-runs Palaces on off-nights with other guilds, just so she can keep improving her numbers and gear.

Her Empress - Johanna - is a monster of a tank. Her DPS soars to the top of the charts. Her damage reduction is even better. The first time you see her plow through a whole wall of enemies without even slowing down, you realize that you not only have a decent raid core at last, but that Queen could be a core all on her _own_.

It's only after she lets slip a few comments about school that you realize she's a Shujin student too.

When you finally meet Queen offline, she appears unaccountably demure at first glance. As Student Council President, the responsibility of her role shows in her posture, honing the clipped edges of her words. She's brittle, hesitant, always watching the other students around you. Her eyes flick like birds, pinpointing teachers like a sniper. Each statement she makes is an open test to see how you'll react, backtracking almost as soon as she voices it.

When she lifts her eyes, however, and dictates a new strategy for the Azazel fight, you can see Johanna staring out of her face with a cold ferocity.

You swallow hard and nod. She makes a clipped jerk of her head back, as if your acceptance had been nowhere on her list of expected reactions - but then, her shoulders relax.

You don't know much about Makoto Niijima. Not as a person. As a Student Council member, she'd always just been some stranger to avoid - someone you'd assumed was a teacher's lackey, mindlessly enforcing their rules even at the cost of the student body. Shujin's recovery has been slow after Kamoshida. Half the volleyball students had already transferred out; the public statement was that it was for their health, but you know how they'd become fresh prey for the rumor mill, just like you. Gossip claims each of their faces: how many of them might have done what, or where, or how. How many of them might have been voluntary participants. How many of them might never be the same again.

And then there's Shiho.

Even now - in moments between classes, when your eyes drift up to the roof or down towards the courtyard - you still catch yourself thinking how lucky you all are that she's still alive.

Fox's teacher, on the other hand, ends up tangled in more lawsuits than you can count after finally caving to pressure from the media; he flees on sabbatical while the evidence brews, abandoning his gallery shows until everything calms down. _Creative slump_ is the excuse - but Fox leaves the atelier anyway, trying to fit into Leblanc's attic before eventually heading for his school's dorms. The resolution is equally disappointing for the extent of Madarame's crimes. A few art blogs comment about the lowering standards of culture these days, but otherwise, the scandal is debated and dismissed.

Even Queen has her own troubles. Student delinquencies are on the rise, but there hasn't been anything she can actually react to; her investigations have been a mere formality to soothe the teachers. Underneath her cool mask at school, she needs a place to talk - somewhere she doesn't have to be _Makoto, _but simply_ Queen._ Where she can knuckle down for hours and annihilate every mob she sees, over and over again through the respawn timers, destroying digital enemies because her offline hands are tied. Her defiance screams out with every creature she catches against her knuckles, refusing to bow, refusing to _yield_.

You understand. It's the same situation as your own. It's like you're both in a fight that never ends, only the enemy is the entire mass of society, and any attempt at pushing back only makes things worse. If you try to complain, you get lectured on how ignorant you are, how lucky that you've never had to go through _real_ problems in life. Microaggressions are killing you all, nibbling away at your stamina and sanity as you're told, over and over, _be grateful for what you have, kid_.

Sometimes they're right, but in the worst way. You're not thankful for what adults have given you - you're glad of what they _didn't_.

"It doesn't seem like it, but we really could have ended up worse in a lot of ways," Queen agrees softly with you one evening as you're both farming tengu. "I mean, imagine how much _more _damage could have been done if Kamoshida and Madarame hadn't finally messed up enough that the legal system couldn't look away. Shiho survived - but not all of Fox's classmates did. Students like us have no defense against that. We aren't given the tools to fight back."

A chill licks along the back of your neck. You click over to her avatar, watching Johanna kick and punch through another set of mobs. It's true. Even now, the only thing any of the Thieves can do is to simply escape your own situations in any way possible, trying to keep your sanity intact. Society won't protect you. It doesn't _care_ about what's actually happening to teenagers behind the smooth facade of family units and institutions. Even if everyone could gather a mountain of documented evidence against the systems abusing you, it would still require the adults in power to actually _listen_ to it.

But together with your friends, you can at least remind each other that you matter. That you see what's happening to Fox, to Shiho. That you _know_ what happened to Shiho. That you won't let yourselves believe anyone who tells you, _you just need to grow up and get a clue. It's harmless. You're spoiled. You don't know how good you have it. Stop whining. _

Banding together online is a minor rebellion - one that others might scoff at, based around escape and survival instead of confrontation.

All the same, it's a rebellion anyway, even if it's all you can do.

* * *

**Patch 5.3 Notes**

* The Bank of Gluttony has been released! Players can now challenge Bael and his minions for all new gear upgrades. Watch the preview video here.  
* Fishers have been reporting a higher percentage of broken lines than intended. Catch sensitivity has been increased, and new bait has been added.  
* Caroline and Justine are no longer bugged, and will properly return the correct items and gold after an alt Execution. Players who Executed their alts during this period will be compensated.  
* The Museum of Vanity has had its traps adjusted on Merciless difficulty. Remember: you'll never see it coming!

* * *

Palace competition scales up again in July, as the developers look for more ways to drive the playerbase crazy. Mementos becomes an unfortunate requirement for raiding. As an open PVP zone - intended for _epic world-scale combat_, the dev notes said - it's technically optional, but all the high-end resource nodes are there, so _optional_ is a laughable suggestion. Most people only sneak in long enough to grab the bare minimum for their crafting materials, in and out as fast as possible. A few of the hardcore crafters set up designated farming routes, picking up materials for their profit margins and pairing up with equally ruthless gatherers who always sell their stacks in the hundreds. The larger guilds have entire gathering parties, with half their forces dedicated to shepherding around miners and herbalists to get their weekly quotas.

And - of course, with any PVP zone - there are going to be players who take advantage of the opportunity to kill their fellow peers.

You're lucky enough to dodge most of the worst griefers, but there are a few who get the best of you on a regular basis. Loki's the worst: a Justice that's stacked with debuff skills and control skills, who doesn't kill you outright so much as watch you kill yourself, health bar dwindling down while you stare helplessly at your DOT stacks. Loki only comes after you when you're alone, usually right when you've been gathering for long enough that you think you're totally safe, and then you're suddenly staring at a pop-up in the middle of your screen politely informing you of your status as a corpse.

You look up Loki on the player directory, and get depressingly little information. No guild tag, no public User Profile associated, so you can't even see their alts. Good gear though - _very _good gear, stuff that drops out of the Merciless-difficulty raids. And, frustratingly, no gathering classes either, which means that Loki's not out there harvesting materials for their own use: just harassing helpless players looking to cook a decent stew for their fellow raiders.

You don't know what they're after. Just venting their own issues, probably, like everyone else. It's frustrating - but at least here, you have a protection that school doesn't offer.

Whenever you've had your fill of seeing Loki's name show up in your combat log, you call it a night and teleport away without a second glance, leaving them behind.

* * *

**Patch 5.4 Notes**

* The Pyramid of Wrath has been uncovered, and is waiting for players who are brave enough to explore its secrets. Is it a mirage, or a chance to fulfill your mission?  
* A new zone, Kanda Church, has been added.  
* New quests have been added! The chain begins at Untouchable with The Yakuza's Son.  
* Reputation gains for Yoshida have been adjusted. Players will rank up automatically if the correct reputation has been achieved.  
* Dr. Takemi's list of medicines has increased.  
* Players can now craft Spicy Curry and Special Curry. Ingredients can be found at all city vendors.  
* The ballista during the final encounter in the Pyramid of Wrath has had its aim corrected, and will no longer fire into the landscape.  
* Ballistae can no longer be manually pointed and fired at other players.  
* The Treasure in the Pyramid of Wrath has had its drop table adjusted, and will no longer disappear immediately upon looting.

* * *

In August, you accidentally find out exactly _why_ Sojiro is so supportive of you spending so much time on P5: it's because his daughter is a gamer too, which makes you the perfect bait to try and get her some friends offline.

In fact, she's the one who finds you first.

The Pyramid of Wrath is some developer's glorified callback to sidescrolling platformers that they hated so much, they want to make sure everyone else hates them too. The layout of each wing makes you run back and forth endlessly. Clearing out the trash always takes up most of the night. You have to hit the first checkpoint, at least - otherwise, everything will respawn from scratch and you'll have to start all over again the next night.

It's a balancing act between the guild's pace and that of the server. Competition has picked up fast, now that you're halfway through the raiding season. The Phantom Thieves have moved up through the rankings - getting more than a few applications, along with offers for guild mergers. New names have popped up in each class's top ten list, along with new drama. One of the minor guilds, Medjed, has been racing to catch up, and has been sniping the open-world bosses to do it, griefing other teams out of the kills. Their raiding history is about as brief as yours: a small, private guild that only had a couple of characters on roster before suddenly stealing half the best DPS across the server, and leveraging their gear to catapult Medjed's guild tag into the top ten.

Fox is doing better though, leaning on the game as continued inspiration for art; he draws everyone's characters occasionally, posting up sketches of Arsene leering over your shoulder. Queen gets her moments in late on the weekends, compromising breaks between studying. You watch her stand off against dozens of mobs, splashing them off her fists like water - and then you watch her expression whenever you pass her by at school, noticing a satisfaction still lingering there, an awareness of her own power even if it's only been acknowledged online. Ann and Shiho are usually paired up in their own group to run content, smaller dailies that last only as long as Shiho has energy for them - but that energy is holding out longer and longer, and Shiho's even begun to talk to the rest of you again, quiet and fumbling with her mic.

The irony isn't wasted on you. Everyone's put on masks in P5 in the form of character avatars and names - and only by doing so did you find freedom from the faces which society had already forced upon you. You're not Ren here, you're _Joker_, an identity created by yourself instead of through a faulty legal record. Arsene might only be an entry in a database somewhere, but you carry his strength inside you each day in the form of a hundred memories of victory, a thousand proofs that you're more than a biased judge's verdict.

Everywhere you go, you're reminded of what you can accomplish with the Thieves, whether it's by executing a raid strategy you've worked on for weeks, or brainstorming together about how to get Ryuji back to a regular running schedule. You've learned how all of them fight; you've taught yourself how to watch out for their warning signs. Ann will only leave a debuff on you when she's really in trouble. If it's a movement effect, then that means she's about to die herself. Mona always switches his assist targets at ten percent, and if the mob is still alive after five seconds, Ryuji's on cooldown and will need some extra DPS to help him finish it. Queen always sidesteps to the outside whenever she's going to pull the next set of mobs early; she takes one step back if she's out of cooldowns and needs a handoff, a tiny half-twitch of motion that you're primed to watch for while on any role.

You ask Queen once if you do the same thing while tanking. She just laughs: a burst of sound so carefree that you'd never recognize it in Shujin's halls.

The presence of your friends is like a set of armor that sits over your shoulders even out of game, deflecting all the criticisms that insist that you're worthless, ignorant and selfish: a delinquent who won't achieve anything until he humbly accepts his place. School gossip slides right off you now; you barely notice it anymore. It's been replaced by the quiet background hum of all the Thieves together, even when you're not in the same dungeon, or scattered across your schools. It's not like there isn't any friction - Ann still yells at Ryuji ignoring mechanics every night, and Fox is almost always late to raids, caught up in painting - but even those connections build a wall together, linking conversations and dungeons and even your setbacks together into something stronger than any one of you alone.

You know you can trust them to be there. Whether it's in chat or town or fighting right beside you: someone's there.

* * *

You meet Sojiro's daughter first through Alibaba, a stealth Hermit unit who slides around you the next time you're preparing to go into Mementos - giving you enough jump-scares that you think about postponing gathering for the night. You're just about to burn a Goho-M when a message chimes its way into your chatlog, and leaves your finger hovering over the button.

_\- From Alibaba: I must admit, your performance on the Sphinx is very good for a Fool. Your dps drops significantly during phase transitions, however.  
\- You tell Alibaba:_ _yeah cafe wifi doesnt handle the fx too well_

A few minutes go by. You recheck the free spots in your inventory restlessly, wondering if it's safe to go in, or if that's just inviting a backstab the second you cross into the PVP zone.

_\- From Alibaba:_ _you're using the public connection?  
\- You tell Alibaba: is there another one_

The chat goes quiet after that. You stand in place hesitantly, other characters scampering into Mementos in the distance while Arsene stares blandly at the landscape, looping through his idle animations.

When you finally try to send another tell to Alibaba, you get the report of no one online.

The next day, it's your phone that catches a text: _How good are you at running your own cables through floorboards?_

_I'm not?_ you admit, and only get ominous silence back again, heavy and judgemental.

Alibaba plays hide-and-seek with you for the rest of the week, drifting around the edges of your screen as you're out farming mobs, or on your way to a zone-in portal. Eventually, you manage to convince them that you're not entirely incompetant. Either that or your rankings on the Pyramid annoy them enough, because by the time the weekend rolls around, you come home from school to discover a girl in your attic crouched over your desk, fiddling around with a screwdriver and the back of your laptop.

Her shriek is loud enough to bring Sojiro running upstairs, still brandishing a cleaning rag.

Futaba - User ID of Oracle, with a stealth unit of Alibaba and a support named Necronomicon - is a Hermit specialist. Appropriately enough, she's also got the best rig out of all of you, with a desktop and a laptop that can both handle raiding. Her room is a gamer's dream, designed entirely around her desk and monitors; her bed is an afterthought, while her chair looks like she sleeps in it most of the time.

Even though it means you're both still attached to your laptops, Sojiro's delighted that his daughter's reaching out. You're less so, until you try the new ethernet connection snaking its way through the floorboards, and make it through an entire Palace without lagging out once.

"I didn't know your house could reach this far," you say, in admiration as Oracle makes you plant Arsene through a whole mass of spell effects just to see how much your screen slows down.

"It doesn't," she replies smugly, and you stop asking questions there.

She finishes off the AOE display with one final cast, and then taps her fingers critically on her laptop. You'd offered her your own desk to work at, but she had simply sniffed imperiously and borrowed the other desk instead, pushing aside your schoolbag without a second thought. "Anyway, I've been looking at all your log reports online," she fumes. "You could _all_ up your DPS by at _least _another thousand points. Your Chariot's burning their cds _way_ too early, and you should really coordinate better for your positioning on the tank swap. Try moving the boss to the corner by the ballista, and then turn it just enough that it won't tail lash the casters."

You can see the strategy in your head. It seems reasonable enough, and would free up the extra seconds lost on mechanics each time. Then you blink. "I thought you said you just looked at the logs?"

"Well," she sputters, pulling up her legs defensively to her chest, "_yeah_. I mean. It's just a guess. Just try it, _okay?_"

You do. She's right. She's right about a _lot_ of things, both in calculations and in strategy. Once online, she completely sheds any shyness, quick with her opinions and orders. Oracle - _Futaba_, it feels weird to call her by her real-life name, even when Sojiro's around - is a better raid leader than Mona, mostly because her Hermit is a support unit who stays at range, while Mona spends most of his time in melee, too close to get a good view of the entire field. It's not that you're lacking in sympathy. Personal experience has taught you how hard it is to watch status bars when half your screen is filled with a Shadow's foot, and you're trying to dodge AOE _and_ keep up a rotation with interrupts on top of it.

But Mona doesn't take it well as you hoped, especially when Oracle starts having strategy meetings in the evening at Leblanc and everyone else can attend in person except for him. Voice chat works, except when people forget that he's not there and start gesturing in jokes that he can't see, or lean too far away from the mic while talking to the rest of the group. You try to assure him that he's still the lead for melee dps, except that that claim rings hollow when he's consistently third on the charts, lagging far behind Fox, and Ryuji still doesn't listen to his directions anyway.

You start checking the guild rankings just to get your mind off the growing tension. Somehow, Phantom Thieves has been climbing up in the charts. You used to scrape along far below the cut-off line, too low to even be ranked. Now you're somehow in the top ten, which suddenly explains Mishima's off-hand comments about getting more and more applications even when the guild site's plastered with banners saying that you're not recruiting.

You thumb through the patch notes, hovering over the initial summary. There are four more Palaces to go. The guild's numbers are good. There's still time for the Thieves to take home the final Treasure that waits at the end.

* * *

**Patch 5.5 Notes**

* The Spaceport of Greed has been released! Players can now challenge Mammon and his minions for all new gear upgrades. Watch the preview video here.  
* All Empress classes have had their base damage increased.  
* The Empress skill, _Filial Obedience_, has been removed from game. It has been replaced by _Filial Betrayal_, which can be used in any stance.  
* New crafting recipes have been added!  
* New gardening items have been added for vegetable beds.

* * *

Even with a group as tight-knit as the Phantom Thieves, it's only a matter of time before guild drama finally hits.

Inevitably, it's from Mona, whose frustration about fluctuating raid attendance and guild event cancellations finally reaches its limit. Offline distractions have been taking their toll; you've all been skipping out of regular dungeon runs to get ramen together instead, or to wander around the shopping centers, forgetting that Mona can't come too. P5 is the only way he connects with you. Whenever you're offline, you're all gone from his world, reduced to phone texts and chat pings that get ignored sometimes when you're in the middle of a movie or just hanging out in person.

Mona's guild quitting - and then trying to form a rival guild, which gets as far as two-manning the latest Palace - is something no one was prepared for, including you. In retrospect, you're not sure if even Mona spent any time thinking about it. He's there one night and gone the next while everyone's busy at school, with nothing withdrawn from the guild bank, not even a single yen.

The hollowness of it feels like a physical loss, even though you know he's still around. You have his number in your phone. He's only a signal away - except, he doesn't answer.

You have to force yourself to ask Mishima to remove Mona's privileges from the guild site. The act feels like salt dumped straight onto a wound. Every time you log on, you get to stare at the reminder in PT's profile, stored in the latest status note: _Mona has left the guild_.

Loki kills you three times in less than an hour the next night. You barely notice. The only thing you can think about is how the guild should have been a good place for everyone, somewhere they could unwind no matter _what_ was going on in their lives, regardless of how much or how little they wanted to talk about it. Loot was never the important part. It's always been about making a place for each other without having society dictate the shape of those boxes, and you've always had the impression that Mona's needed that more than any of the Thieves. Even Oracle.

Even you.

"Just apologize, Skull," Ann grouses when you all assemble for the next raid, waiting for one of the applicants to log on and join party. "You're the one who pissed him off the most. The rest of us were trying to at least be polite about it."

"I didn't do anything wrong!" Ryuji insists again, and then relents when there's a wave of exasperated protests through the speakers. "Okay, maybe I _did_. But I was just trying to have fun with him! It's hard, y'know? We never see the guy, I just wanted him to, I dunno, stop taking it so _seriously_ when we're doing something else."

"I've seen him advertising in town," Oracle chimes in, around what sounds like a mouthful of that night's curry. "So far he only has one member - an Empress named Milady. User ID of, um, Beautythief. We could try to poach her so he has to come back?"

"_No._" Rubbing your temples, you watch your chatlog for any stray tells. As embarrassing as it had been to get in touch with the most recently rejected applicants - saying that you'd changed your mind after all, and would they be willing to come try out - the prospect of trying to run a raid with both him and Ryuji sniping at each other was far worse. "Mona's still our friend. Remember? That hasn't changed just because his guild tag has. Let's try to remember that, and give him some time."

Ryuji makes a comment about how competition is good anyway, still trying to defend how things have turned out. But after every guild applicant steadily fails out - not listening to Oracle's directions, complaining about your loot roll system, implying that the only reason Queen is main tank is because she slept with someone - even he relents. "Okay," he finally admits grudgingly. "Let's apologize."

"You mean _you_ should apologize," Ann clarifies, still seething; the last raider had called her the carry DPS.

It's easy enough to track Mona down: he hasn't taken everyone off his friends list, including you. You've both been dancing around each other's location, avoiding major towns and quest hubs whenever the other person is online. He's not geared enough yet to handle Mementos solo, so that means when you finally head over to see him, he's perched morosely on the edge of the zone with a stack of debuffs still ticking away on him, getting patched up by his new recruit.

He doesn't teleport away in time, nervously clicking between you all. Luckily enough, Ryuji's boisterousness comes in handy as Cptkidd charges in, unleashing a storm of emotes and erratic shouts. You stand back from the flurry of apologies and explanations and tentative understandings being pieced together - but not because you want to keep your distance. Everyone's already surrounded Mona in a wave of colors and gestures, and you want to be able to see it all, to keep an image of the entire guild gathered together on screen so you can stamp the memory in your mind the way it should be.

You lean back in your chair to rub at your face in relief, your headset sliding around your ears as Mona finally logs onto voice chat, and everyone breaks out into cheers.

Surprisingly, Beautythief - now Noir - pays the cost for an ID rename, even though she's still fairly new; it'd be cheaper to delete it and remake, since she's not even past level 20 yet. "This was the account that I met you all on!" she chirps over voicechat, aghast when Ann brings up the question. "I would _never _want to get rid of it."

The sentiment is charming - albeit, 1000 yen worth of charming. _Noir _is easier to say and type anyway. She catches on fast, and plays a great tank alongside Johanna, the two of them complementing each other with their Dia and Patra options, which lets you focus more on filling out gaps in elemental weaknesses and support. Your roster is stable now at eight, though without any spares; everyone has to show up in order to field a steady raid, but even if one person can't make it, a single pick-up DPS doesn't hurt your performance.

The only real problem remaining is that Loki hasn't left you alone. Their name keeps coming up on the official forums, so there are other guilds being preyed on - but Loki's still managing to stalk anyone they feel like. They rarely go after teams; their favorite victims are out solo or in pairs. Most people are betting that they're the alt of some leading guild out there, harassing other teams so they can't farm Mementos safely. It's an ugly accusation, but not uncommon. Loki wouldn't be the only PVPer on call.

But with the prominence of Loki's kill-list, convincing the Thieves that they're picking on you too is remarkably difficult, bordering on paranoia.

"Are you sure they're not just some crafter you undercut on the auction house?" Ann asks the next raid night as you're warning people to ration their supplies. It was hard to come up with enough elixirs this time; you'd had to dip into the guild bank to buy some of the fish, wincing at the cost. "It seems like a pretty good way to enforce pricing control."

"_You're_ all welcome to farm raid mats instead," you remark dryly, and finish passing her a stack of stamina food before moving onto Mona. "I'm completely willing to share _that_ chore."

"_I_ farm," Noir chimes in, sounding a little hurt.

"You garden! Which," you hastily add, "is _very_ appreciated. But that's safely at our guild house. Our lawn's in a sanctuary zone. The most dangerous thing Loki could do to you there would be to spam emotes."

Ryuji restlessly hops up the side of the nearest hill, restlessly pulling nearby mobs even as you're trying to chase him down for a trade. "Man, they're such a troll," he barks. "I mean, kids like that just want attention. I bet it's some twelve-year-old dicking around 'cuz they don't have anything better to do."

"Don't knock twelve-year-olds," you parry dryly, and then manage to get in range of Cptkidd long enough to open a window. "Mada's been top dps on our server for _months_. Don't be jealous because they beat you by at least 2k sustained."

Ryuji sighs, long and exaggerated enough that you know you actually hit the mark. "Yeah, _well_, Towers are way too overpowered, we all know it. And Chariots are all about burst damage anyway! The first two minutes are the ones that really count!"

They aren't. _They_ _really aren't_. Fights last well beyond the five minute mark these days, and pulling aggro from the boss before the tank sets up properly just sees Cptkidd eat floor half the time. But before you can dig into _that_ particular unwinnable argument, it's Queen who brings you back to the issue at hand. "Don't you have a counter for Loki in your alts, Joker? Or can you have Arsene inherit one?"

It's a question that you've asked yourself, more than once. "Loki's stacked with DOT skills, right? I haven't been able to proc a decent resistance inherit in Arsene yet, so he's worthless against debuffs. Whenever I run into Loki, they just keep berserking me, and then whittle me down with summons and curses."

"Bring a stronger alt, then." Still Queen, still ruthlessly practical. "Or at least a class with a Travel Skill, like Johanna."

"Arsene is my only gatherer and crafter, and I'm _not _leveling a second one. Why don't you guys do it?"

Silence.

"Loki never shows up when we babysit you," Ryuji protests after an awkward minute. "Can't you just hack the servers and look their info up, Oracle?"

Oracle hums, an atonal thread through your speakers. "_Welllll_," she drawls eventually, and then coughs, clearing her throat. "You know how the servers kept crashing last month, and you guys all thought it was a DDOS attack and kept complaining? And then P5 went through all that emergency maintenance every day for over a week? And _then_ the Palace release got _totally_ delayed because of that? And how we lost a million out of the guild bank because they had to do a rollback as well?"

"Yes," you respond shortly; that had really hurt everyone's funds. Then, "Wait. 'We thought'?"

"_Anywaaaay_, we _probably_ should just avoid them for now, if we can't stop them," Oracle concludes brightly. "But let's keep working on that too! At some point, they've _got _to get bored of you, Joker. Killing you can't possibly be that fun!"

* * *

As numerous raid bosses and mobs can attest, killing you is apparently quite a _lot_ of fun.

Loki doesn't stop. You change schedules, starting your farming times right after school gets out, hoping to take advantage of the window in case the player either has cram school or a job. Whatever the cause, you get about an hour before they show up, which is at least better than nothing.

And you've got more important things to worry about than griefers, anyway. Noir's father dies of a heart attack - overwork, they're saying, all that time invested to support one of the political candidates who keeps cluttering up the TV - and she's barely able to log on, let alone raid. Missing content isn't the important part. With Noir offline, all you can do is try and text her, and hope she has the chance to text back.

_I wish I had spent more time with him_, she admits to you once over chat, and guilt cuts instantly into you; you know exactly what had been occupying her evenings instead. Then she follows it up with a quick, _But it's because of all of you that I had the strength to change things at all. My father - he was so determined to make the company a strong one, he started thinking of everyone as just part of a machine, including me. So thank you for that, Joker. You were the only ones encouraging me to reject my marriage arrangement, and I believe that's what my father needed to be shaken out of his fixation... and to start seeing me as a person again._

You mull over Noir's situation as you're working a café shift, remembering conversations about the company board and her former fiancé. Talk about the elections is on every channel, filling up the advertisements whenever you try to look up strat videos; it's impossible to get away. Sojiro's figured out how to bribe all the Phantom Thieves with food and coffee by now - possibly because he doesn't want to see you and Oracle both automatically retreat back into your rooms again - and now the television is a continual backdrop to your strategy sessions, chattering away about approval numbers. You can't really protest his tactics. You've become a heavy coffee drinker ever since starting P5, and you're pretty sure that Leblanc is the only way that Fox is remembering to stay fed.

The Casino of Envy gets released right in the middle of all this: a glittering explosion of environmental effects that would have ground your own connection to a halt, if you weren't using Oracle's. The raid has some interesting designs to it, but the puzzles this time are already causing people to complain after the twentieth time they've had to run back after a wipe. Rumor has it that the devs are working on a way to shortcut through the maze section, but the guild still has to clear it first to unlock it at all, and every step is a struggle.

It gives you plenty of food for thought during work at Leblanc. You're fielding an afternoon shift when the door jangles, and Ryuji sticks his head in, waving wildly from the door. "Hey!" he shouts. "I've got the logs uploaded if you want to take a look! Oracle says she'll have the recording later today for us to watch. I'm gonna check it out after practice, catch you later!"

You give him an awkward victory sign - as much as you're allowed to mess around with P5 in the café, you're not supposed to be wearing an apron while you do it - and then scout an eye around the booths to see if anyone's noticed. Thankfully, the only customer at the moment is a high-school student, about your age. You've seen him before: he's a semi-regular to Leblanc, though you haven't had the opportunity to really talk, and you don't recognize his school crest.

You offer a sheepish grin to him anyway as he glances up and crooks a wry half-smile back. "P5, I take it?"

If Sojiro were here, he might give you one of those looks that manages to express both concern for professionalism, and forgiveness for anything to do with Oracle. "Yeah," you admit. "Do you play?"

"I have a Justice, pretty well geared," the other teenager replies, swishing the coffee around his cup with a twist of his wrist. "He's named Robinhood. As for myself, I'm named Goro - Goro Akechi. I've been looking for a steady raid group for a while, ever since my last one broke up. They had Merciless Envy on farm, and I don't want to fall behind. How's your progress?"

The mention of the higher difficulty is somewhat daunting, but you try anyway. "We could use a regular Justice," you admit. There's no resist versus Almighty, but a lot of players still don't like to main them, preferring more versatile direct damage. "My guild runs three nights a week - just regular for now, but we're hoping to start Merciless tomorrow. Would you be up for it?"

Akechi's smile is fainter now, but he tilts his head in what could be potential interest. "I could be. Which one is it?"

"Phantom Thieves," you reply, scribbling down your User ID and raid hours on a napkin, feeling Sojiro's implicit disapproval radiating through the walls. "My main's a Fool named Arsene, but I have a few other alts I work on, here and there. Look me up under Joker if you want, they're all listed."

Akechi's eyebrows arch in a reaction you can't identify; the rest of his face is smooth and serene. "Ah," he enunciates softly, running his thumb over the strokes of your name. "My ID's Crow. I'll add you on my friends list the next time I'm on. Keep an eye out for me."

You look up Crow's profile that night. There's only one alt listed on his public settings, which makes sense when you check Robinhood's equipment: Akechi wasn't kidding about his progress, because the character's already geared as high as you can get with this patch. No guild listed, but all the Palaces to date have been unlocked, including a dozen limited zones from well before you started. Like Mona, he must have been playing for years.

Unlike Mona, he has no other ties. With the gear tier he's in, Robinhood should have his pick of any guild. Instead, his player is slumming it in an obscure café and taking offers from relative strangers instead of leaning on his reputation and previous connections to pave the way. And while the Phantom Thieves are rising higher in the chart - sixth in ranking, soon to be fifth - they're still minor enough to be well below his radar, not worth helping except out of charity. There's nothing that Akechi would benefit from with you, nothing he'd want.

You're not sure what you can offer him at all.

The riddle follows you all the way into Mementos the next evening, distracting you as you try to come up with appropriate bribes that would still be fair to everyone else. You're lost in your own haze of progress numbers and guild names, mechanically farming mining nodes in a familiar loop - only to be finally snapped out of it by the sight of a red name on the horizon.

Loki.

You swear quietly, too low for even your microphone to pick up. Somehow, you ran over the safe time for your gathering window by at least an hour.

You're an easy target for the sleek figure that's at the top of the hill - no buffs, only a pickaxe equipped, don't have time to change gear before you'll be engaged in combat - but Loki only watches you, glittering with full buff stacks, their crimson sword drawn and ready.

Then, inexplicably, the familiar glow of a Goho-M wraps around them, and they vanish, leaving you untouched.

* * *

Crow's playtime is erratic. He comes on late in the evenings, later than any of the rest of you, but he's on for longer too, still going strong even as you're yawning and drying off from the bathhouse. Like Queen and Oracle, you're not sure what to call him; he introduced himself as _Akechi_ first, and you met him offline before his avatar, but P5 is where you see him most. It's a weird cross-section of social territory where you're not sure which of his identities to defer to first. Even with your case, _Joker_ is more accurate than _Ren _these days: an identity you chose, rather than have distorted for you.

But Crow is the name he picked, and you don't see him at school, so you enter his number in your phone appropriately.

He's a solid player, and fits in easily with groups during the week whenever he's on, not only familiar with conventional strategies, but also able to improvise on the fly. His reaction time is outstanding. Whenever things get hectic or someone accidentally body-pulls an extra patrol, Crow's one of the few people who stays reasonable over voice chat, reading the kill order out steadily until there's only a spread of bodies to loot on the floor.

Having another member in guild is a big help, especially when you blink and realize just how full your schedule's become. Ryuji's back to running again - with your encouragement - and Fox juggles life and painting in uneven measures. Queen's been working to reconnect with the other students again, while you picked up a few extra part-time jobs outside of the café to help fill out your pocket money. You're already a delinquent, so you didn't bother getting permission from school; Sojiro had cautioned you about overwork, but you hadn't expected your life to brim over so easily, stuffed with events to catch and friends to spend time with.

As you're cleaning up the café one evening - the rhythm of it familiar, knowing exactly where all the coffee beans and dishes go - you catch sight, oddly, of Crow on the television. He's chattering away with a broad smile on his face, offering soundbite after soundbite about how some guy named Masayoshi Shido is the only candidate who has a sense of what Japan's job market is like for recent graduates. Shido, he claims, wants to make sure that every student is going to be well-prepared, and Crow's putting his trust in him.

"Isn't that our Justice up there?" Oracle mumbles around a mouthful of curry. "Why's he wasting time on _that?_"

Sojiro comes to your rescue by virtue of having any interest in actual politics to begin with. "Goro Akechi? That kid's part of Shido's marketing campaign. 'The portrait of Japan's shining youth,'" he quotes with a snort. "If you ask me, getting a kid to serve up your own propaganda for you is pretty tasteless. But I guess it's better than folks like me telling you where to put your votes."

You ask Crow about it later that night, curious. It's an off-night, so it's just the two of you online for once; Robinhood's running dungeons for yen, and you're endlessly gathering.

"Shido wants a face to help him lure in younger voters," is all Crow says quietly. "It works out for me to be that face. For now."

The evidence doesn't add up. He doesn't sound anywhere close to that brittle, high-powered cheer that he exhibited on tv, and your gut instinct - that it had been a lie - refuses to be dismissed. "Do you really believe in that guy's promises? Is that why you're helping him out?"

Even as you ask the question, you realize you don't know how to interpret any potential answers: you've never heard Crow talk about anything personal from his own life, ever. He doesn't attend most of the guild weekend meetups, and whenever you've seen him at Leblanc for coffee, he's always been preoccupied, eyes darting towards the tv. You're lucky enough to know which school he attends now, but that's only because you looked up the crest on his coat. He's discreet, sure - Mona's also on the private side - but Crow takes it to another level entirely. You don't even know what he actually _enjoys_ about P5, let alone the Thieves.

"Does it matter?" he offers back, and there's a hard enough edge in his voice that you take the hint, and open up the dungeon queue.

* * *

The October patch steps up competition for everyone across the board, releasing the next tier of classes along with another Palace. Game design intends for players feed their mains straight into their new characters - which is easy for everyone else to do, but impossible for you and your million alt choices. Predictably, Queen pushes Johanna straight into Anat the very first night; all her stats are maxed out anyway, and she's been preparing for weeks, fresh gear stored in the bank with a full set of enhancements just waiting to be used. Fox is next in line, switching Goemon out for Kamususanoo, and promptly starts farming with Ann when she upgrades to Hecate. Ryuji upgrades Cptkidd earlier than he should; he ends up with half his gear useless for the new stat priority, and all you hear from him for _days_ is how his crit rate is nonexistent anymore on Sttaisei.

None of them are crafters, but that's okay. Loki hasn't killed you in weeks.

Surprisingly despite all his skills, Crow doesn't Execute his main. You would have thought he'd be first, faster even than Queen. But as the elections have been getting closer, Crow's become quieter and quieter, like a ghost fading away with the daylight or a tide that's ebbing out, disappearing even as you're watching his character on-screen. The withdrawal is gradual, but constant. It reminds you of the way that you'd expected to vanish beneath the contempt of your school, calling as little attention to yourself as possible, accepting that you didn't belong.

But unlike Crow, you had the Phantom Thieves. Crow wears your guild tag, but he's not part of the team, not by any stretch of the imagination. It shows, too, during raid nights. Now that you have everyone diligently making each raid, it's the DPS which needs to rotate - rapidly causing friction as you try to juggle seniority without hurting anyone's feelings. You'd rather fight a million bosses than deal with Ryuji's complaints that you should _bring the A game_ to the new encounters, which makes you point out in turn that Crow outperforms _him_ half the time. Queen and Noir have the tank spots, and Oracle and Mona still have some lingering rivalry around support. You offer to sit out every time, but everyone refuses and insists that you come, if only because you're the best dedicated healer at this point.

Over and over, it's Crow who gets asked to leave.

_\- Sttaisei: r we going in r not  
\- Hecate: we've got the dps, can we jut queue already  
\- Hecate: *just  
\- Sttaisei: YOUR the dps  
\- Sttaisei: lolololll  
\- Hecate: glad you noticed_

You rub your temples, trying to figure out how to impossibly avoid hurting anyone's feelings yet again. _We can swap you in at the hour break_, you send to Crow, hoping for a compromise. _You should get practice on this fight too_.

_No_, Crow sends back. _I'm the bench, right? You're making the right decision as guild leader. Good luck in there._

_\- Robinhood has logged out._

You find yourself staring bleakly at the chat window, trying to figure out a way to rewind time. You take screenshot after screenshot of the conversation as you scroll up and down through the log, hoping to pinpoint exactly where you lost the chance to change Crow's mind - until Ryuji starts spamming emotes at you to wake you up, a screeching of sound effects and text that fills up your screen.

You shake off your concerns for now and try to remember boss mechanics instead, heading for the Palace to lose yourselves among the casino lights.

* * *

November wraps up without any trouble. The Thieves are skating forward towards victory through the guild rankings, closer and closer to that final tier where the top ten winners are awarded Holy Grails by the end of the season. The raiding calendar will reset after the close of the year; you'll have to go through this whole nightmare again in April, but at least you'll have a few months off to recover between seasons.

To try and make up for everything you've been doing to him, you figure you can at least invite Crow to groups for daily dungeon runs. You dust off your tank alts and offer to give him fast queues; you heal for him without any hesitation, leaving the other DPS dead on the floor while you give him first priority on any resses. Sometimes, you and Crow just group up and sit around the guild house, doing nothing whatsoever in the days between raids; your inventory's a mess, and as one of the only people with the patience to craft, you're stuck trying to keep track of materials as well as people's gear lists.

One evening when the queues are running long even when you're on a healer, you both end up lounging in the front yard instead. Crow checks his mail while you idly fiddle with inventory management, trying to remember which gear sets you wanted to keep, and which to phase out.

"I want to talk about what we can do with the roster," you venture. A few clicks and the rest of your backpacks open up, staring at you with all their clutter. Somehow, you have five pairs of pants, but only three chestpieces. "We should set up a fixed schedule. I mean, once we get everything on farm, it makes sense to rotate people in so everyone gets the gear they need. I know you've got best-in-slot for just about everything, but did you want anything for an off-set?"

You're just starting to make sense of the extra pair of crit boots that turned up in your inventory when you realize that Crow hasn't responded yet. "Crow?"

"It's okay, Joker." Only three words, and yet the heaviness of the sounds feel like they drop straight through your headset. "It's all right. Don't add me to the roster. I... don't know how much time I'll have to play soon. The elections are almost here, and my sponsor's investing everything he can into them. I'm sure you can imagine how much opportunity that will leave me for gaming."

The way Crow says it, he expects you to know the man's identity already - but there's only one politician you've bothered to keep track of lately, mostly because you haven't been able to shake the feeling like you've met him before. "He's that Shido guy, right?"

Thankfully, Crow makes a soft noise of affirmation. "If everything goes the way he's planned it, he'll win the election and I - " His voice trails off, and then there's a rustle of cloth, as if Crow's shifted in his chair, pulling up his arm between his face and the screen, or leaning away entirely. "I might not have much chance to be online after that."

The confession is unsettling in more than one way. It's the first time you've heard anything significant about Crow's personal life at last, and the abruptness of it feels so foreign that it feels like you've blinked and missed something, a blaring warning sign that got lost between chats. "I didn't know you were going into politics."

"I'm not." A pause. "I won't be going into anything once this is over."

Okay. That's important.

Instantly, you close out your inventory and click on Robinhood, targeting him - not that that helps, because it's not like having him selected will give you any indication about Crow's _actual _facial expression right now. "Can you tell me about it?"

It's a gamble to push your limits with Crow, especially when he's already demonstrated that he's fine just logging for the night whenever things get too tense. But something gives, unexpectedly; you hear Crow make a half-noise of a word that seeks to struggle free before he can shape it properly. He tries twice before succeeding, and even then, he sounds like he's grimacing around the syllables. "It's complicated." On screen, Robinhood fidgets, backing away a few steps from the mailbox before sitting down in the grass. "My bank account, everything for school fees and clothes and food, even my apartment - it all comes from him. I don't have any money of my own that he doesn't control. It's all run through a back-channel fund at the social agencies. Shido owns everything I _am_."

Maybe it's the lateness of the hour, or the way that it feels like you're both safely separated by distance, insulated by being able to cut off the conversation through simply hitting _Log Out_. Whatever the cause, you're reckless enough to plow ahead. "How did _that_ happen? Did your family's company go into debt and he bought it?"

"In a way," Crow replies softly. "I'm an orphan. When the minimum voting age was lowered a few years back, I went to Shido and convinced him that he could win over that demographic before any other politician recognized the chance. He keeps me out of the system and pays for my schooling - and in return, I put on a fake face of a model student for Japan's future, someone who's willing to talk about how he's the best choice for any teenager who wants good career opportunities when they graduate. If we both succeed, Shido should have enough votes to make it to Prime Minister. After that, he's promised that I'll get enough money to make it through college, and into any company I'd like. Except that's never going to happen."

Crow's voice over your headset swings between resolute and resigned. You wish you could see his face, but the only image that comes to mind is the way Crow's mouth would crook down just a fraction whenever the television was left on at Leblanc, drinking his coffee while National Diet members babbled in the background. It was the only change in an otherwise pleasant demeanor, the only crack in whatever mask _Goro Akechi _represented. You'd noticed it. Until now, you hadn't known what it'd meant.

His next words come faster, smooth and relentless, as if he's recited them over and over in the silence of his own thoughts, until their cadence has worn down all the sharp edges so that they no longer hurt the way that they should. "I _know _what Shido's like, what he's done in the past. Once he gets a safe majority in the polls, he'll find a way to discard me early. I could get a one-way ticket to another country with nothing but my suitcase. Or he'll simply phase me out of his campaigns, and claim it's to let me focus on my exams before terminating my funding. Either way, I'll vanish. But what he doesn't know," Crow adds, a dry, fraying laugh interrupting his words, like a corpse being beaten to expel its final breath, "is that I'm going to try and ruin him _first_."

It sounds brave enough. But something isn't adding up, and the discrepancy leaves you wary, full of gaps that are wide enough to end the conversation the moment you misstep. "Do you have any evidence that might work against him like that?"

"Yes. Myself."

On-screen, Robinhood is immobile, the character staring straight ahead with nothing selected to focus on. The skies overhead become overcast, clock ticking steadily towards an accelerated night. A few mounted riders thunder past, showing off their latest drops; Robinhood doesn't stir. "I'm his son - except no one knows it, not even him. There's no father on my family record. Shido's been setting me up to look like a stranger who's won over to his cause, when I've been a blood relative all along." There's a moment - a pause, a soft laugh stripped of all humor. "It's not much. With as popular as he is, I'll just look like some kid lying for attention or a payoff. I've been investigating everything else I can reach through his political connections, recording it all just in case I can find the right leverage. If nothing else, at least I can try to drag Shido down with me into the dirt when he abandons me for the last time."

You lean gingerly back in your chair, careful not to let yourself react aloud. Crow's right: it isn't much. There are still scandals littering the news about illegitimate kids, and all kinds of measures going around to make family registries more fair - but that doesn't make people any more welcoming towards orphans. Politicians are immune from everything, it seems like; the more wildly crass their behavior gets, the more their loyalists dig in to defend them.

Even when one of them gets kicked out, their replacements are always the same.

You know how shallow it would be to parrot back the facts. Crow has to be more than aware of the truth, and it won't help to act like you can enlighten him on it. But in the face of his declaration, his willingness to turn himself into a tool just to disgrace one man, you don't know what else to say.

All you know is that - like watching a woman get shoved towards a car, struggling helplessly against what she thought was inevitable - you won't stand aside and watch.

"He'll win either way like this, Crow." You're already shaking your head, even though Crow can't see it. "That's how it happens in society. We're supposed to have the chance to replace corrupt adults when we get older ourselves - except it never _happens_, because by the time we survive long enough, they've already made us into exact copies of them. But you're _better_ than Shido. You have every reason to keep yourself from following his example. And if you cut yourself short here, you'll never get the chance to prove it."

"_Better._" Now, finally, Crow moves; his character selects the door of the guild house, as if debating walking away right now, though Robinhood remains seated. His voice is tight with annoyance. "I'm just as bad as he is, Joker. How do you even know if anything I've told you is real? I could be just as much of a backstabber as he is. You don't even know what I'm _like_ \- "

"I'm a criminal," you blurt out curtly. "I was convicted of assault."

As soon as you finish the words, a wave of queasiness crawls over you, making you instantly wish you hadn't spoken. Your other friends already know, but you've heard their secrets too; you've all traded histories back and forth, asking for someone else to hear you even when they're kilometers away. Crow is still largely a stranger. It's a collision of both your worlds - _Ren_ and _Joker_ crashing together and leaving no corner unmarred - and you can feel the safety around you tilt precariously, as if Crow's suddenly going to shout the news in every major city and guild site, and other players will turn their heads to whisper in scornful conspiracy. You know no one will care, you _know_ it, but you can't stop remembering the cold knot in your belly that took root during those first few weeks at Shujin, recognizing the circle of your own shunning.

But Crow must have felt the same way when he told you he was illegitimate, and he must feel the same way you do right now: tempted to just drop party and log out, change his character name, break ties and pretend to never know you again.

Thankfully, Crow hasn't quit out yet. You don't give his imagination time to keep running. "I stopped some government official from forcing himself on the woman he was with, and in exchange, he decided to ruin my life to avoid getting charged. So yeah - I _know _what it's like to have your legal reputation get wrecked by someone else. Right now, there are only three adults in the entire world who'll say I'm anything other than _worthless_, and of those, two are my parents and the third started off hating me too."

It could have all come out self-pitying; it probably still does. But even despite that, the defiance in your soul simmers up anyway, granting you the courage to press back against Crow's assumptions. "Do you really want to give up on everything you have for a system like that, one that supports someone like Shido? Because even if he loses, he'll still be telling you what you can and can't do in the end. It's _his_ kind of laws which say you won't amount to anything. Are you going to believe them?"

Crow scoffs; you expected as much, but he's wavering enough to argue with you, which is better than dismissing you completely. "What other option do I possibly have, Joker? Belief won't make a difference when it comes to a bank account. I don't have any money for college, let alone the rest of high school. Once I start falling behind, I'll be lucky to get whatever job I can find. I won't have the chance to do anything about Shido, and by the time I have any kind of reputation again, he'll have been Prime Minister for so long that nothing will get him out of it. So _no_," he continues, picking up momentum again with equal intensity to your own. "The best chance I have is to somehow make myself useful enough to Shido that he'll keep me around even after the election. That maybe he'll realize that I can be smart and work hard and maybe... maybe he'll _want_ \- "

He stops there, cutting off whatever confession had been about to slip loose - but not before you can hear the yearning that frays through his voice.

It's surreal to be on this side of the fence, looking at Crow from behind the protection of the guild and all your friends. You're not even a year through your punishment; he's been enduring his for all his life. Even in a space where everyone can spend their time masked with different names and identities, he's played his cards close to his chest, well aware of how much damage can happen if rumors creep back into his public life.

But - despite all of that - he reached out to you anyway, and you won't ignore that chance.

"So?" You throw the question out with a deliberate smirk, an insolence that makes no secret of its playfulness. "I want you here too. Are you saying Shido's that much better of a choice than me?"

The challenge hangs in the air, contrasted by the tranquility of your online surroundings. It's a quiet that makes you regret every second of it, made all the worse by the frozen immobility of Robinhood.

Then, slowly, on the cusp between disbelief and hope, Crow asks, "What are you saying, Joker?"

"Come over and hang out for the weekend." You weren't sure about your chances of goading Crow enough to shake his convictions, but now that you've lured him in, you can't stop. "See for yourself if how we live is really that intolerable. If you don't have a laptop that can handle P5, we can borrow Oracle's - just bring your addons and settings. We'll farm some of the dungeons, work on whatever you need for drops. No matter what it is, I'll tank it for you. I promise."

Silence colors in the space between you again, tempered only by background environmental noises. Then you see Robinhood's focus switch over to you, the character's head turning unerringly in your direction.

"Okay," he agrees, very quietly: a hushed sound barely caught by the mic, as if whispers can grant him plausible deniability later if he chooses to say he never wanted it.

* * *

You end up literally camped out in the attic with Crow the next night, skipping out on your other social obligations while you settle him in. Sojiro leaves extra curry in the fridge in case either of you get hungry, and sacrifices some of his best beans to fill up one of the coffee pots; he pretends to grumble the entire time, muttering and ducking his head while failing to hide the smile. You wrap the couch in fresh sheets and stack up extra covers, making sure the heater is topped off with fuel. Everything's perfect.

Judging by the uncertainty that Crow exhibits, however, you guess that he's never been over to a friend's house before. When he arrives, he sets his bag down in the tiny niche between the desk and the stairwell, holding himself very carefully still as you fuss around the attic. His eyes track your every motion, shifting his weight cautiously on the creaking floorboards, as if he's expecting to accidentally break some unspoken convention that will get him kicked out at 1 a.m. without any chance for forgiveness.

Once you both get properly fed and your laptops set up, that's when Crow finally starts to relax. You can't help but laugh at the sight of him in casual clothes, his shirt rumpled and loose as he leans against the side desk and uses a spare book for a mousepad. Together, you wander through some of the zones around the Bank of Gluttony and Pyramid of Wrath, attempting unsuccessfully to two-man the Casino before finally trying to spawn the Reaper in a remote corner of Mementos. Neither one of you have finished your weekly quests, but there's no better opportunity than now: Crow needs a few extra instance runs and you haven't capped your faction reputation, which will go twice as fast in a group.

His DPS is high enough to make all the pick-up groups run smooth. You make good on your word in turn. As the hours tick away past midnight, you race through dungeon after dungeon with Robinhood at your back, keeping him gloriously unharmed while he stands untouched in the middle of waves of enemies, and sets the world ablaze.

* * *

You know that adults like to say that time online gets you nowhere. That those friendships aren't _real _interactions. You've seen all the news articles that claim that what you're experiencing isn't valid support. It's not meaningful, it lacks emotional connection. It's invalid without a physical face attached. At best, it's preventing you from having _actual _friendships one day, because you haven't been interacting with anything other than a handful of masks.

But relationships exist no matter what form they're in. Only the format changes. The friendships that keep you going here are different, but they have more weight than anyone trying to treat you as _Ren Amamiya the delinquent_. You're not sure what's more real than listening to Noir cry softly about her father while you all talk to her quietly in voice chat, late enough at night that she wouldn't have had anyone around to hear her in person. You're not sure how it's not actual support when you sit patiently with Fox as he tries to fit the pieces of his future together around the fees for art supplies and calculations for gallery spaces, watching the rendered sun rise and set and scatter stars overhead, and you tell him over and over, _you have talent. You can make it. You have us. You'll be okay._

None of the Thieves have supernatural powers in real life. As convenient as it would be, you're not mages with reality-tearing powers, or armored warriors that can hold off an army. You can't even - with the exception of Queen - fight _one_ person and expect to win without getting hurt. But what you _can_ do is protect each other, building a bastion of reassurance that provides a different world in place of the one being shoved upon you. If P5 is just one giant Palace, then your hearts are the Treasures you're storing there, stealing them away first from greedy hands.

When you think about all the weeks and months you've spent on P5 with your friends, there's not an hour that doesn't hold significance. The silly moments mean as much as the serious ones. There's the time when Ryuji redecorated the guild hall entirely in neon yellow without telling Fox, so Fox got his revenge by skilling up his fishing enough to fill Ryuji's mailbox with lobsters, one per letter, stuffing it full. There are countless evenings when you've wandered along beside Fox as he insisted on taking a million screenshots of every Palace landscape, so distracted with his UI turned off that he didn't notice the half-dozen mobs he aggroed. The guild has had too many moments where you're all facing a pull gone horribly wrong, with Queen fiercely holding aggro and you chaining together heal spells in the arc of safety she provides, watching the clean, brutal beauty of Ryuji and Fox ripping through health bars in tandem.

And then there are the times when it's your turn to protect the group, and you're frantically burning all your cooldowns and keeping the aggro of fifteen mobs all targeted upon yourself, hearing the metallic smash and clatter of enemies bouncing against your shield, burning all your cooldowns one by one as you stare down the monsters trying to wipe your party out - and you refuse to let them.

Persona 5 brought you and Ryuji and Ann together. It wove a tentative network among your classmates with Shiho, Mishima and Queen. It gave Mona people to talk to from wherever he's been stuck at - out in the country or stranded in an apartment somewhere - and brought Oracle into Leblanc, coaxing her all the way down to planning raid strategies in the corner booth of the café. It connected Queen to help look up legal resources about Noir's financial options with her company, and you to Noir as you've asked about which kind of businesses actually bother with extensive background checks or not.

P5 broke you out of the prison of fake rehabilitation that had been forced around you. It gave you an entire world of freedom again, one where your sole identity is controlled by your actions, not by the blame that adults smear you with to escape their own responsibilities. Like water over the stone of your heart, all of society's browbeating could have ground you down over the months, eating away at your self-identity. At the end of your probation, you might have been so exhausted that you might have been willing to bow your head, and accept a guilty verdict after all.

But the guild had been a shield against that. Mona, Fox, Shiho - everyone had added up in equal measure against that trickle that had been gnawing at your confidence, dulling your will to rebel. You were saved in time.

Crow doesn't have that. As far as you know, you're his only team. The Thieves might be the only place where he can go to be himself, and he's already convincing himself to step away.

* * *

You invite Crow over again the next weekend. Then the one after that. December is cold in the attic - but Sojiro seems to approve well enough once you tell him that Crow's just like the rest of Oracle's friends. That's all the man needs before he applies the logic of _orphan, abandoned child,_ and _starving_, probably in that order. After that, you can't _stop_ Sojiro from trying to stuff curry and coffee into Crow every time the other teenager steps through the door, extending offers on your behalf before you can even figure out your own free time.

But it means that you get company on weekends, and sometimes during the week when it's easier for Crow to commute back to his own school from Yongen-Jaya. Thanks to his part-time residency at Leblanc, the other Thieves run into him more often by default, too. Oracle sneaks in to stammer nervously over different strategies; Queen starts off with a parse comparison before sidetracking into a study session, working through different sets of mathematical formulas with her head bent over his worksheets. For the first time, Crow joins you at the weekly planning session, your laptop opened up to P5 so Mona can join you all via his character instead of just a voice through a phone.

"Hey," you say one Sunday night, when the winds are etching lacework frost on the windows. You've both already finished your homework, bags packed for the morning commute. Dinner sits warm in your stomach. "If Shido wasn't in the picture anymore, what would you want to do instead?"

Even though you should already be in bed, both of you are tucked around the kerosene heater, pulling down the extra blankets and pillows that Sojiro had laid out to make the couch more comfortable. Bundled up like a caterpillar, Crow sleepily watches the glow of the flame, his hair still damp from the bath.

"I'd be a hero for the people," he ventures. "Like Robin Hood, but in real life. Even before I saw Shirogane on tv, I used to dream about those kinds of characters - vigilantes, detective princes, legends who aren't always accepted by those in power, but who are recognized as champions against injustice anyway. I'd bring all the corruption in Japan's political system to light. Then I grew up and realized that it's impossible," he concludes with a dry laugh, barely stronger than a cough. "There wouldn't be anyone _left _in office if I did. What about you?"

"A fire truck," you says nonchalantly. "I was six. That one didn't work out so well."

Crow doubles over and shoves his face into his blankets, shoulders heaving, and you wonder if he's actually trying to smother himself in order to get away from your company. Then you realize he's laughing: helpless snorts that hiccup free of his hands, and you can't help but grin too.

"What about when you got older?" he manages once he's recovered, smoothing his expression back down.

"Listen - after a fire truck, anything else is just settling for less," you deadpan, and are rewarded by Crow curling into his knees, sounding like he really is choking himself to death with a cotton blend.

You wait for him to catch his breath, leaning back against the rickety shelf carefully. There's coffee slowly dwindling to tepid stasis in your cup - good thing you'll be able to sleep like a rock anyway - and you nudge it closer to the heater to keep it warm. "Are you still worried about the election?"

Crow nods after a minute, a fractional tilt of his head that he turns into a huddle in the blankets, cloth tenting in thick folds around his shoulders. "I don't know what will happen. Even if I _wanted _to lay low and build a stronger case to expose Shido with later, I still have to find a way to survive in the meantime. Shido's not going to continue paying me if I turn away from him now. And whenever I've thought of it before, it's just seemed -" He pauses there, almost dropping off completely before finally resigning himself to a shrug. "Impossible."

_Impossible _is one description for it. It's not even an exaggeration. But you've had the time to consider Crow's position - time, and the experiences of your friends to draw upon. You pick and choose your next words with care; it's not your place to expose everyone's full histories without their permission, but you know them well enough by now to understand where that line of trust falls.

"You don't know the rest of the Thieves that well yet," you say after a minute. "But Fox is an orphan too. His mother died when he was still young, and there's no record of his dad, so he's all alone. That's what Madarame forced him to believe all those years - that if Fox left, he would have no home, no food, and no future in art to support himself with."

Across the heater, Crow stirs, pulling his knees up to his chest. "I remember Madarame," he says, unexpectedly. "He was one of Shido's business associates. I was planning on exposing his forgery racket as well, but he was careless enough to ruin himself first."

Somehow it doesn't surprise you, knowing Madarame had a political backer. You settle back into your own blankets, pulling them up against the winter chill. "Oracle's like you and Fox, plus she's missed years of school too. But they'd both be the right resources to ask about scholarships, and I _know_ Sojiro would let you stay in the attic once I'm gone, probably even for free. Noir lost her father thanks to overwork for Shido's campaigns - she has no parents either anymore - _and_ she has both the funding and motivation to plan out an actual investigation into him. Queen's sister is a prosecutor, and Noir's already started talking to her about her suspicions. Even _I've_ got a reason to want to shake things up," you tack on, trying to laugh a little, even though the fact of it still feels heavy in your chest. "I've got a record for the rest of my life. It'll be sealed, but never erased - it'll be there as part of my legal identity forever. If I'm going to be treated like a criminal anyway, I might as well help people break whatever part of the system I can."

Laid out so directly, even you can taste how fleeting each offer might be. The fire of the heater glows with unrelenting warmth, beating against your skin; you lean forward and adjust the knob, blinking away the afterimage of flames against the attic shadows.

"Think about it," you continue, laying out each sentence like a stone on a path, carving the way towards a Treasure at the end. "Everyone in the Thieves needs someone like you, Crow. You're smart, you've had experience with the government, and you have just as much reason to want to expose all the corruption that's out there. Help us find a way to do something about people like Madarame, because someone's got to protect us when things are this broken - and even though we get told to go to the authorities, they're the ones who end up hurting us the most. If you want to be a hero, start _here_," you conclude, splaying your hand on the floor and tapping it for emphasis. "Start with us."

At last, Crow straightens up - but instead of hope filling his eyes, there's only a disdainful scowl scouring away all traces of his drowsiness. "Really? _That's_ all you can suggest?" Despite his expression, his voice has no venom in it: only a tired resignation, a bitterness which has had years to mature alongside him, honed by every failed dream. "I've heard the same pointless encouragement all my _life_, Joker. None of it actually means anything. Everyone prattles at me about how much potential I still have even though I'm an orphan, how not everyone is going to end up as a wealthy CEO somewhere, and that there are still businesses willing to take kids like me. And you think you can just rattle off the same overdone bullshit speeches, and _change_ all that?"

"Not really," you toss back, undaunted, quick as a dagger strike. This part of the conversation is familiar ground: you've had variations of it before with Ryuji, with Queen, even with Noir. You've had the same doubts yourself, isolated during school lunchtimes when everyone else pulls their desks together and ignores yours. "_You're_ the one who gets to figure out how much you want to change, and _why_. That's going to take time, no matter what. But right now, the only thing you have to decide is a lot simpler than that." You pause there deliberately, letting the statement dangle as bait until Crow's gaze finally flicks over, and sees you watching him. "Do you want to win on Shido's terms, or your own?"

You're glad you prepared yourself for this moment; Crow holds your stare, attempting to cow you through sheer contempt. Then his eyes narrow, gradually weakening as your challenge sinks in. You can almost see the moment when his pride starts to bare its teeth, fixing its target on you and forgetting the rest of the world.

"Are you saying that I should suddenly switch schools, hide away from any public attention, and come live in an attic, like you?" he retorts with a dangerous mildness, teetering just on the edge of scorn. "That there's any future to be found at all like that?"

"Well, I got to meet people like you didn't I?" you challenge back, an equally defiant whisper from across the room. "And you got to meet us."

At this, suddenly, Crow drops his gaze, folding his arms across his knees and retreating behind them,

pulling himself back into their protection. "I did, didn't I," he says softly, so quietly that it's almost swallowed by the aging floorboards and the hum of the café's refrigerators below. "I got to meet you all."

* * *

The elections roll closer as December marches on. The issue of Shido doesn't come up again between you and Crow; you don't try to force it into the open. All your cards have been laid out for now. It's his turn to act.

You watch the date of December 18 inch closer and closer, and don't take anything for granted.

True to his word, Crow's online attendance drops, and his visits to Leblanc taper off - but the guild is always there, and he remains on the roster with you all, occasionally logging on to share polite greetings with the rest of the Thieves. The news reports bleed into a hurricane of polls and opinion pieces. You don't see Crow on the television anymore, but it's impossible to tell if it's because he's broken away from Shido, or has just been overshadowed by louder speakers.

When you do see Crow in P5, he's always occupied. You spot him a few times, unexpectedly, in a separate voice chat with Noir; then you discover him grouped up with Queen, staying up late to talk with her next. Curiosity gnaws at you, urging you to ask your other friends directly - but you grit your teeth and remind yourself to wait, hoping that he's at least building connections.

Even as the elections peak in a frenzy - Shido offering beaming, bloated acceptance speeches about his victory - P5 reaches its own crescendo. Preparations for the final Palace of the season hit like a tidal wave, sweeping up the entire playerbase into its excitement. All the guilds have to start from scratch, regardless of previous victories; the Prison of Sloth shuffles its layout every time it's re-released, forcing players to explore new corridors and die on fresh mechanics. Videos get dug out anyway, played and analyzed and debated hotly by every guild on the forums. The Phantom Thieves are still in the top ten, miraculously; if there's ever a time to go for the Grail, it's now.

Once you finally get a raid roster worked out that even Ryuji agrees to, you text it to Crow. It's the first time you've sent something directly to him since Shido's win. You haven't seen him online since.

_Will you be there?_ you ask, and wait.

A few minutes tick by.

_Count me in_, Crow sends back at last.

He shows up early, before anyone else has logged on for raid prep. It's natural by now to accept his party invite, clicking it automatically while you wade through all the other windows you have open. You don't think anything of it - busy with rearranging the guild bank and trying to figure out who shoved everything in the wrong tabs - until you spot his character drawing close out of the corner of your eye, and a trade opens up unexpectedly.

You blink at the sudden influx of icons appearing on your screen, stampeding relentlessly down the open slots. There's money, a lot of it. Bead Chains, Takemedics, crafting materials - even Skill Cards, high-end ones that can take months to farm on their own.

"What's this?" you finally manage to ask through your surprise. Then dread finally breaks through the awe. There's only one thing that this degree of liquidation can amount to, and you don't want to hear it, even as you make yourself ask. "You're not quitting are you?"

It feels like an eternity before Crow's voice drifts back to you. "No," he responds, and you feel all the air trickle out of your lungs in a long, relieved sigh. "I simply had an alt I wasn't using anymore, that's all. I'd like to give his items to you, if they might be useful."

You accept the trade only to get the window off your screen, and then switch over to examining Robinhood, mousing over each piece of his equipment. When Crow had first joined guild, he had been at that patch's gearscore cap - but all his time atrophying on the roster had started to bring down his level to average, falling behind on a few slots. Now, every item has been pushed to the maximum, fully enhanced and optimized for Justice stats. It's a Queen-level of detail: terrifying in its perfection.

You stare, mousing over the gear one more time in case you're hallucinating. "Did you boost Robinhood?"

"Execute experience token," Crow acknowledges. Though his tone is calm, there's something a little rueful about it. You can sympathize; there's always something sad about getting rid of an alt you've really sunk a lot of time into. "Don't worry. As it turns out, I don't think I need that alt anymore."

Just as you're about to automatically update Crow's stats in your roster - no need to make sure he has that Casino chest upgrade after all - you pause, drumming your fingers carefully on the edge of your keyboard as the facts sink in. Crow had leveled another character. More specifically, Crow had leveled _and_ geared a powerful character to keep on tap, one easily the match of Robinhood.

All along, he'd had another option to switch to instead of sticking with your guild. He could have gone anywhere. He could have stayed with that alt's connections, and pursued a different path entirely.

In the end, he had chosen the Thieves.

You're frozen for so long that - for once - it's Crow who breaks the standoff. "Hey, Joker?" he asks. His voice is quiet over the chat, so quiet that it sounds like he's having a difficult enough time pressing the push-to-talk key, let alone matching words to the motion. "Were you... serious about being there, if I need somewhere to go?"

The question shoves you back into the moment, blinking ferociously at the screen. You don't allow yourself to hesitate on this one. "I said I'll tank for you anytime, didn't I?" you remind him, grinning. "You _are_ coming with us to win the Grail, right? I have you as DPS for the first hour, and then you'll swap out with Panther at the break. Skull will sit for the last part, so everyone can get a chance for some solid experience."

It's gratifying to hear the way that Crow's voice warms, picking up enthusiasm again. "Are you certain?"

In that simple question, you hear so many more words poised: _do I fit in with the team, do you trust me to perform? Do I bring the right skills? Am I what you need for progression?_

_Do you want me here?_

But the answer to each one is the same, and you're willing to say it as many times as you need to. "You're one of us, right?" Without waiting for confirmation, you grin, already opening up a return trade while you count out Crow's food buffs and curatives. "Then let's get this game started."

* * *

**Patch 5.8 Notes**

* Mementos has been upgraded! A new zone, Prison of Sloth has been added, with multiple new regions to explore. Players who have cleared up to the Path of Iweleth will be able to access it immediately by going to the entrance of Mementos and speaking with the Velvet NPC. Happy hunting!  
* Players who are charmed during the final Sloth boss will no longer remain fixed in a perpetual state of Lust.  
* The texture glitch that caused all cities to be filled with red light has been corrected.  
* Yoshida has concluded his career storyline and has moved on to speak elsewhere. Players who have not been able to finish his quest chain will have their quests automatically removed from their log.  
* Instancing has been removed from Mementos. The bug which split party members into separate instances has been corrected, and all party members should be able to see and interact with each other once more.  
Caroline and Justine have been replaced by a single NPC named Lavenza, who will handle all previous alt management duties.  
* Igor's voice clips will now play correctly in cutscenes.  
* Reset switches have been added to all Prison of Sloth floor puzzles. It is no longer possible to lock party members permanently behind a wall with no ability to get them out again.  
* With the release of Prison of Sloth, all Grail rankings from previous seasons have been reset. Guilds will no longer benefit from _Wish of the People_ without earning an active Grail once more. Active Grails are limited to the first ten guild clears per server, and will be awarded in a future patch.  
* Now wake up, get up, and get out there!


End file.
